Urve Palo Becomes the New CEO of Novoloto

Urve Palo, the former Estonian minister of population and ethnic affairs, has become the new executive director of the Novoloto. Novoloto is part of the Austrian holding Novomatic AG, one of the largest manufacturers of hardware and software for slot machines in the world.

“Novomatic is not only one of the largest companies in its field in the world, but also an innovative and socially responsible enterprise. My main goal is to maintain a level worthy of a parent company in Estonia and to increase Novoloto’s market share. In Estonia, Novoloto wants to be a good employer for more than 300 employees,” Urve Palo said.

Novoloto operates 22 gambling halls throughout Estonia. Palo announced her intention to end her political career in July last year. From April 2007 until May 2009, she served as Estonian Minister of Population and Ethnic Affairs. She also served as the Minister of Entrepreneurship in Taavi Rõivas’ second cabinet.

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New Report Says Lithuanian Online Casinos, Bookmakers and Offline Venues are at Risk of Money Laundering

A new report by the analysts revealed that Lithuanian online casinos, bookmakers and offline venues are at the risk of money laundering.

According to analysts, the risk of money laundering for land-based casinos in Lithuania on a scale of 1 to 4 is estimated at 4, for lotteries – at 2, and for the online gaming, slot machine simulators, online betting – at 3.

The casino sector is at risk because its operations are based on a significant amount of cash flows that are attractive to organised crime groups, politically significant persons and people arriving from high-risk countries for money laundering, the report says.

The online gambling industry is attractive to criminals due to the high volume and fast execution of transactions, as well as low identification requirements, which allows them to easily convert illegal funds into legitimate gambling earning.

The report also indicates that the gambling supervisory authority in the country is not sufficiently prepared to deal with the threat of money laundering in casinos.

“The number of investigations conducted by supervisors during 2016-2018 is insufficient and not proportional to risk. This may be due to a lack of human resources in the department, in which three employees devote only 15% of their time to supervision of money laundering issues.”

The report proposes casinos, slot machines and bookmakers to introduce debit cards to easily track the transactions, set limits on cash deposits, use customer cards to control gaming activity, and conduct checks in the style of a “mystery shopper” by the supervisor.

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Spinmatic Partners with Topsport

Spinmatic, the developer and supplier of casino games, has partnered with Topsport, the largest gambling operator in Lithuania. Through this deal, Spinmatic will reach Lithuanian gamblers through Topsport online casinos.

The partnership is part of Spinmatic strategy to expand its scope of operations to all countries around the world.

“TOPsport is extremely happy to start the partnership with Spinmatic. It helps us to strengthen our positions in Lithuania and Spinmatic starts to play a big role in it. We are happy to be able to offer our clients an even wider spectrum of different casino games and we hope that this partnership will take both TOPsport and Spinmatic really far,” Gintaras Staniulis, CEO of TOPsport, said.

“Thank you to Irmantas and Linas for their support on making this partnership happen in such a fast and easy way. For Spinmatic it is great to collaborate with TOPsport, having the possibility of offering our amazing video slots to players in Lithuania,” Adam Spisak, Sales Director of Spinmatic, said.

You can vote for your favorite companies in the Baltic and Nordic region between 1 – 30 June to help them reach the top 5 and advance to the shortlist. Vote here!

To have a non-biased nominations list, the nominations committee has been set up by our team and consists of Andrius Gabnys (Founder at Gabnys Law Firm) for the Baltic region and Morten Ronde (CEO at Danish Online Gambling Association and Managing Partner at Nordic Gambling) for the Nordic region.

Once again we are implementing a transparent voting process to determine the winners of the 36 categories by setting the same rules as for the prestigious CEEGAwards and the SEGAwards.

The process looks the following way:

Public Online voting – Period: 01.06 – 30.06

Shortlist announcement: 6 July 2020 (top 5 per each category)

Final Vote: 6 August 2020 (All attending delegates of the MARE BALTICUM Gaming Summit will get the chance to vote for their favorites to determine the winners of the 2020 edition of the Baltic and Scandinavian Gaming Awards)

Winner announcements: 6 August 2020 (The winners will be announced in the final session of the conference by the award presenters)

MARE BALTICUM – The Baltic and Scandinavian Gaming Summit will once again bring together the leading companies in the Baltic and Scandinavian region for a full day of quality learning and networking with local regulators and industry experts.

For further inquiries about the 2020 live edition of MBGS and BSG Awards (6 August – Tallinn, Estonia), speaking/attending/sponsoring options, make sure to send an e-mail to Andrada Bota (B2B Sales Executive at Hipther Agency) or subscribe to the weekly newsletter on the following link.

MARE BALTICUM Gaming Summit, also known as the Baltic and Scandinavian Gaming Summit & Awards offers the opportunity for both new companies and veterans, to learn about industry insights and compliance update, while also being part of a group that is at the forefront of the gambling industry in the Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Sweden, Denmark, and also from the DACH region.

The Summit approaches all regulatory and compliance related aspects of the mentioned markets and also highlights some trending topics of the gambling industry.

European Gaming Media and Events is a leading media and boutique event organizer in the European Union with a monthly reach of +50,000 readers. The official company (PROSHIRT SRL), has been listed for 4 years in a row among the top 3 Advertising and market research agencies in the local Top Business Romania Microcompanies based on the Financial Reports.